Bach Keyboard Music
Early, Formative Years

Keyboard Music: Early, Formative Years

William L. Hoffman wrote (May 15, 2019):
The music for keyboard was at the heart of Bach's musical interests, beginning with his studies with his older brother, Johann Christoph at Ohrdruf (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Johann_Christoph_Bach_(organist_at_Ohrdruf), as he learned the art of composition and performance. The keyboard enabled him to provide a full range of music, harmonically and contrapuntally, and to teach music to his students and family. Virtually all of his music for keyboard was composed for non-liturgical purposes such as recitals, teaching students, and as sketches in musical notebooks for home and teaching use. The keyboard music was a roadmap to Bach's development as a composer in which he explored various genres, beginning with French dance suites and polyphonic preludes and fugues as he begun to compile groups of works. Later, Bach came full circle to these genres to compile collections and publications, almost all involving keyboard music for clavier or organ.

The early works often are compositional studies that may be transcriptions or thematic settings derived from other composers in which Bach explores the French suite and its various dances as well as the German prelude and fugue forms.

In Weimer, Bach transcribed various string concertos in Italian concerto form for keyboard. Other shared genres found in both keyboard and organ pieces include preludes and fugues, sonatas, toccatas, fantasias, and variations. Exclusive to the domain of clavier music are the various French suites, while exclusive to the organ domain are the liturgical settings of Lutheran chorales. In Cöthen, Bach focused almost entirely on instrumental and keyboard music, having almost no opportunity to compose organ music or sacred cantatas. Mastering composition with French, Italian, and German hybrid styles, Bach began systematically to build collections of keyboard works primarily in the French dance media and with German contrapuntal techniques. Bach published four collections of keyboard studies and increasingly in his final years he adopted both new galant and dance styles such as the polonaise, while blending stile antico and stile moderno forms.

Here is a rough outline of Bach's early, antecedent keyboard works and their mature successors in collections:¹ 1. Early French suites (partitas, overtures), BWV 820, 822, 833, 832, 821, 823, and 996 (http://www.bach-cantatas.com/NVD/BWV818-824.htm; later the Six English Suites, BWV 806-811 (http://www.bach-cantatas.com/NVD/BWV806-811.htm); Six French Suites, BWV 812-817 (http://www.bach-cantatas.com/NVD/BWV812-817.htm); Six Partitas, BWV 825-830 (Clavierübung I, http://www.bach-cantatas.com/NVD/BWV825-830.htm), and French Overture (Partita), BWV 831 (Clavierübung II, http://www.bach-cantatas.com/NVD/BWV831.htm). 2. Early contrapuntal fugues: BWV 896, 949, 993, 947, 995, 954, 946, 950, 951, 957, 533a, 588; and mature preludes and fugues of the Well-Tempered Clavier, BWV 846-893 (http://www.bach-cantatas.com/NVD/BWV846-869.htm, http://www.bach-cantatas.com/NVD/BWV870-893.htm. 3. Early improvisatory and variation works, the Manualiter Toccatas, BWV 910-916; and the Arias & Variations, Capriccios, BWV, 989-994 (http://www.bach-cantatas.com/NVD/BWV989-994.htm), including the Aria variata, BWV 989, and the mature Chromatic Fantasy & Fugue, BWV 903 (http://www.bach-cantatas.com/NVD/BWV903.htm), and Goldberg Variations, BWV 988 ("Clavierübung IV," http://www.bach-cantatas.com/NVD/BWV988.htm), with its annex, 14 Canons, BWV 1087 (http://www.bach-cantatas.com/NVD/BWV1087.htm). 4. The Weimar Concerto transcriptions, BWV 972-987 (http://www.bach-cantatas.com/NVD/BWV972-987.htm), and the later Italian Concerto, BWV 971 (http://www.bach-cantatas.com/NVD/BWV971.htm). 5. The contrapuntal Cöthen Inventions and Sinfonias, 772-801, and the four canonical Duets, BWV 802-805 (Clavier-Übung III, http://www.bach-cantatas.com/NVD/BWV802-805.htm). 6. Various earlier preludes and fugues, BWV 903 (http://www.bach-cantatas.com/NVD/BWV903.htm), 904, 894; and the published Musical Offering, BWV 1079 (http://www.bach-cantatas.com/NVD/BWV1079.htm), and Art of Fugue, BWV 1080, http://www.bach-cantatas.com/NVD/BWV1080.htm. In addition, there are three early miscellaneous manuscript collections, the Möller Manuscript and Andreas Bach Book of keyboard pieces for organ, clavichord and harpsichord, and the Neumeister (Organ) Chorales, BWV 1090-1120 (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neumeister_Collection); as well as three mature manuscript collections: Clavier-Büchlein for Friedemann (1720-23, http://www.bach-cantatas.com/NVD/WFN.htm), and the Anna Magdalena Clavier-Büchlein (1722) and the Anna Magdalena Notenbüchlein, BWV 508-523 (b1725, keyboard and vocal), https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Notebook_for_Anna_Magdalena_Bach).

Formative Years, 1703-1717

The importance of the initial north German keyboard style on Bach was solidified with the recent discovery of the Möller Manuscript and Andreas Bach Book, "strengthening the attribution to Bach" and enabling a "better understanding of his earliest keyboard style," says Nicholas Kenyon in his new study of Bach's music.² These sources, as well as the Neumeister collection, have lead to the reevaluation of these obscure works with sone still being readmitted to the Bach Werke Verzeichnis canon, with "some quirky gems, which enable us to understand the speed at which Bach learnt and developed." Bach brought home north German works to Thuringia from Lüneberg in 1702 and perhaps in 1706 from there and Hamburg.

Bach began by adapting through transcription or thematic alteration the preludes and fugues of other composers such as Jan Adam Reincken, Tomaso Albinonio, and Wilhelm Hieronymus Pachelbel, says Kenyon (Ibid.: 129f). At the same time as strict counterpoint which he readily mastered, Bach also became immersed in the free-form stylus phantasticus improvisatory technique, particularly in the toccata. While most of Bach's early employment involved playing the organ, he also exploited the opportunity to use free (non-chorale) preludes and fugues at the beginning and end of services while composing keyboard suites, sonatas, capriccios and toccatas for home performance, says Richard D. P. Jones in his study of Bach early composition.³ Bach pursued these "large-scale multisectional genres inherited from the seventeenth century," says Jones (Ibid., "the sonata and other genres": 13f), "as the vehicle for his first encounter with contemporary French and Italian styles." "For him, as for his older contemporaries, the keyboard was a microcosm, capable of absorbing the most diverse styles and genres from anything within the known world of music." Bach's early French suites "may be viewed as the first stain a long process of development that eventually lead to the French Suites or the Partitas," as well as the French Overture, BWV 831, and the Orchestral Suites," BWV 1066-69, and as "the main channel of French influence in his music. The seven miniature, improvisatory Toccatas, BWV 910-916 "mark the culmination of Bach's early work for keyboard instruments without pedals," says Schulenberg (Ibid.: 75f). Although not a collection "they remain strong works, each with its own distinctive design" and great variety." "They are characterized by dramatic gestures and inventive, extended fugues," says Kenyon (Ibid.: 131).

Bach's "first maturity"occurs in Weimar (c.1709-1717) when he masters the Italian form of the concerto, transcribing the string concertos for solo keyboard, both for the church organ and the recital clavier, BWV 972-987 (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nk5If1LQVmk). Bach particularly relished the bright primary colors, driving rhythms, triadic tutti themes, idiomatic violin writing, clear ritornello structure and "freedom from constraint and schematism," says Jones (Ibid.: 136). The keyboard adaptations are from string concertos of Vivaldi, Weimar Duke Johann Ernst, Allesandro and Benedetto Marcello, and Georg Philipp Telemann. These works also had their parallel or equivalents, in the organ transcriptions, Five Organ Concertos, BWV 592-596, http://www.bach-cantatas.com/NVD/Organ-Music-Trans1.htm: "Weimar Concerto transcriptions"; and https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Weimar_concerto_transcriptions_(Bach). "Many of these arrangements are significant keyboard pieces in their own right" and are "important documents for Bach's musical development," observes Schulenberg (Ibid.: 90).

Cöthen Keyboard Mastery (1720-23)

Bach's exploration of instrumental works began in earnest in Weimar when he first composed movements for what would become the Brandenburg Concertos and the Orchestral Suites as well as the first of the clavier English Suites. Having mastered the keyboard instruments and composition, Bach in Cöthen began compiling keyboard pieces for collections, "partly designed for teaching purposes," says Jones in his study of Bach's mature composition,⁴ as well as for publication and performance. The English Suites (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N-HZpXnjXM0) "most likely originated during the early Cöthen years," says Jones, and were followed by other collections or compilations: Friedemann's Clavierbüchlein (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Klavierbüchlein_für_Wilhelm_Friedemann_Bach); contrapuntal studies of the 15 three-part Inventions, BWV 772-786, and the 15 two-part Sinfonias, BWV 787-801, called Aufrichtige Anleitung (Upright Instruction) and completed in Leipzig in 1723 (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inventions_and_Sinfonias_(Bach); and Book 1, preludes and fugues of the Well-Tempered Clavier (WTC), BWV 846-869. Bach also began composing the French Suites in Cöthen.

Apart from the first English Suite conceived in Weimar, Bach initially started the Little Keyboard Book for 10-year old Friedemann at the beginning of 1720 as a guide to learn and play music beyond simple exercises.⁵ It was the beginning of Bach's "full creative maturity," says Jones (Ibid.: 16), " — to be fully comprehensive and exhaustive in his approach to any keyboard form." Thew book has a wide range of compositional models, including other composers such as the style galant of a Telemann French "Suite in A Major," TWV 32:14, and the Partita in G minor of Gottfried Heinrich Stölzel. Sebastian's music includes mostly early versions of 12 little preludes, BWV 924-930 and 939-942 (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gsxLO2WYadc, the first 11 WTC preludes, and the 15 two-part Inventions, and 15 three-part Sinfonias, and other works (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=108oqTGqINk, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZGb3vCzaG2g). The pedagogical book, as Bach describes it, was a primer to learn to play two and three voices in a "cantabile manner," and to "acquire a strong foretaste for composition" It was for family use, with Friedemann making entries, while the finished versions of collections were copied by later students in Leipzig. The Little Keyboard Book may have complemented the Orgelbüchlein (Little Organ Book), Bach's first major keyboard collection (unfinished), compiled in Weimar when he "composed a considerable number of teaching pieces," says Schulenberg (Ibid.: 129). Anna Magdalena's Clavierbüchlein of early 1722 is the earliest source of the French Suites, Nos 1-5, in her autograph and its principal contents, in addition to a chorale prelude on "Jesu, meine Zuversicht," BWV 728 (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zUqqoZD9RGY) and the three minuets, BWV 841-843 (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=65FwmU2kQhY). It was the first of their collaboration in "the future production and preparation of his music for performance," says Nicholas Kenyon (Ibid.: 183).

Well-Tempered Clavier, Inventions-Sinfonias

Bach's monumental Well-Tempered Clavier, his most readily transmitted, studied and treasured keyboard collection, had quite a genesis, beginning possibly as early as 1715, when J. C. F. Fischer's Ariadne musica of 20 preludes and fugues in different keys, was republished. Other writers c.1720 — Johann Mattheson and Johann Kuhnau — also were experimenting in all keys for tuning and uniform temperament purposes. Friedemann's book begins with simple preludes, some attributed to him, followed by minuets and then the first of the Well-Tempered Clavier preludes, BWV 846a, focusing on simple arpeggio structures, says Kenyon (Ibid.: 141), proceeding "to fully elaborated ventures like the magnificent multi-sectional E-flat Prelude," BWV 852 (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EU0pswS6rFs). This pedagogical collection was more advanced than Friedemann's book, with the 1722 title page for both youth "desirous of learning and for the pastime of those already skilled in this study," cites Kenyon (Ibid.). Following the initial preludes, various iterations of the fugues followed.

Finally, Bach played Book 1, BWV 846-869, of 24 preludes and fugues three times in the mid 1720s to his student, Heinrich Nicholas Gerber. They are"the very sophisticated end product of many strands of rich tradition, and an ideal vantage point from which to survey virtually all aspects of Baroque keyboard music," says David Ledbetter in his extensive monograph of the WTC.⁶ The "WTC may have seemed a sort of official compendium of examples by a recognized keyboard player of unparalleled ability and a master of the arcane art of strict counterpoint," Says Schulenberg (Ibid.: 161), with a "richness and variety of their musical content." Exploring the full range of the tonal system, the WTC preludes focused on three overall composition types: arpeggiated/figural, cantabile, and contrapuntal, observes Jones (Ibid.: 23), while the fugues "are greatly varied in terms of contrapuntal procedures employed: stretto inversion, double and combination in single, double and triple fugue (Ibid.: 26). The WTC Book 1 "marks the end of an important period in his development," says Davitt Moroney.⁷ Here for the first time in his harpsichord music we can see the evidence of the organizational power and absolute intellectual grasp which are so evident in his later works. The second volume was complete some twenty years later; it sums up a similarway the most highly charged language of Bach's maturity."

Entered after the initial 11 WTC preludes in Friedemann's book are the two-part Inventions and three-part Sinfonias, representing "a further advance in complexity and technical difficulty," says Schulenberg (Ibid.: 149), mostly in composing or revision drafts with "similarities of style, dimensions and overall conception." Within the keyboard polyphony, "many of these "invention" pieces seem to reflect Bach's acceptance of galant elements — 'sigh' figures, expressive 'singing' melodies." Originally called "Preamble" or "Fantasy," these instructional pieces were arranged in the 1723 fair copy by accessible key order omitting the most problematic keys with the greatest number of accidentals, found in the WTC preludes and fugues. Bach was preparing for his probe for the cantor's position in Leipzig "where keyboard instruction was an important part of the cantor's duties," says Kenyon (Ibid.: 133).

The Inventions and Sinfonias "might be seen as a bridge between the preludes and fugues on the WTC, with their different technical demands, or else as a stage preparatory to the [WTC] fugues," says Jones (Ibid.: 9933). Thus, he was creating a new genre that combines elements of both prelude and fugue, Jones suggests. The music involves the three dimensions of the "motivic" developing ideas (inventions), contrapuntal in the two and three parts, and cantabile style of playing also emphasized in the WTC. Further copies after 1723 show Bach's students adding their own embellishments or and "to imitate them in new inventions as well," says David Montgomery.⁸

"English" Suites: First French Dance Collection

"Next to the Well-Tempered Clavier and the inventions, Bach's best-known keyboard works are the suites that were composed, or at least collected and revised during the 1720s and 1730s," says Schulenberg (Ibid.: 231): the so-called "English Suites," BWV 806-811; the French Suites, BWV 812-817; and the Partitas, BWV 825-830. "The English Suites occupy a medium position, in terms of length and virtuosity, between the French Suites and the Partitas," he says (Ibid.: 234). They are probably the earliest of the three collections, beginning as early as 1713-14, "sound weightier and more ambitious than the French Suites, perhaps less consciously designed for teaching than performance," says Kenyon (Ibid.: 134). Five of the six suites open with preludes in concerto style, related to the Weimar keyboard transcriptions (see above) as well as the large virtuoso preludes and fugues and the Brandenburg Concertos, "all of which may have originated during the Weimar period," says Schulenberg (Ibid.: 234). This derivative writing suggests that title "English," from Johann Christian Bach's copy, may have been based on a commission from an unknown Englishman. The dance movements, especially the allemandes and courantes, incorporate significant imitative counterpoint into these traditional forms, having little precedent, says Schulenberg (Ibid.: 34f). By the time of their composition, "he knew how to take from eacf of the three national styles [French dance, Italian sonata and German fugue] and to create a new style which was no patchwork but a brilliant synthesis," says Maroney in another essay.⁹

The approximate dating of the English Suites is during the early Cöthen years, says Jones in his compositional study (Ibid.: 36f). The established form of the French suite (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Suite_(music) — Prelude, Allemande, Courante, Sarabande, Bouree, Gigue — also is found in Bach's six Cello Suites, BWV 1007-1112, and the solo Violin Partitas, BWV 1014, 1016, 1018, both groups "likely to have been existence by about 1720," says Jones (Ibid.: 36f). Almost all Bach's works in Cöthen were instrumental court music — keyboard, solo, and orchestral — as he sought to perfect this synthesis. About 1720 Bach focused on keyboard music and began composing and compiling pedagogical collections to teach his sons and students but set aside the English suites since he possibly "felt obliged tp keep them for his own and the dedicatee's use," Jones suggests (Ibid.: 37). In his first years in Leipzig, Bach focused on his primary cantor's responsibilities to compose church-year cycles. At Lent time 1725, Bach ceased his second, chorale cantata cycle and turned for the rest of the year to instrumental music, composing the first keyboard Partita as the beginning of the Clavierübung I, expanding his keyboard students, and taking up organ concertos for performance in Dresden. The first of the student copies of the English Suites date to 1725. Meanwhile, Bach had begun the French Suites in 1720 with sketches and first drafts in the Anna Magdalena Little Music Book dated 1722 but did not complete and assemble them until 1725 when he also began the second Anna Magdalena Book.

In order to demonstrate his abilities to teach music as part of the duties of cantor in Leipzig, including keyboard and composition, Bach had available in early 1723 for his Leipzig probe three exemplary practical textbooks of keyboard music "inventions" which he then applied with his students at the Thomas School, observes Christoph Wolff in an essay: ¹⁰ the Well-Tempered Clavier, Book 1; the Aufrichtige Anleitung book, and the Orgel-Büchlein (Little Organ Book). These served both as learning tools to play the keyboard as well as to "acquire a foretaste of composition," says Wolff.

FOOTNOTES

¹ Chronological description of Bach's keyboard works, see David Schulenberg, The Keyboard Music of J. S. Bach, 1st ed. (New York: Schirmer, 1992, contents https://books.google.com/books/about/The_Keyboard_Music_of_J_S_Bach.html?id=GnbGQzhz0SgC).
² Nicholas Kenyon, "Keyboard Traditions," Bach 333, Bach: The Music (Berlin: Deutsche Grammophon, 2018: 129; https://www.prestomusic.com/classical/products/8469462--bach-333-the-new-complete-edition); also more details from Kenyon's "Keyboard Music," in The Faber Pocket Guide to Bach (London: Faber & Faber, 2011: 383ff).
³ Richard D. P. Jones, The Creative Development of Johann Sebastian Bach, Vol. 1: 1695-1717, "Music to Delight the Spirit (Oxford & New York: Oxford University Press: 11)
⁴ Richard D. P. Jones, The Creative Development of Johann Sebastian Bach: Volume 2,, 1717-1750, Music to Delight the Spirit (London: Oxford University Press: 2013: 4).
⁵ See Joseph Payne, "Wilhelm Friedemann's Klavierbüchlein, liner notes in Hänssler Edition Bachakademie Vol. 137, 1999: 21, see recordings above).
⁶ David Ledbetter, Bach's Well-tempered Clavier: The 48 Preludes and Fugues (New Haven & London: Yale University Press, 2002: xii).
⁷ Davitt Maroney, liner notes to his 1988 Harmonia Mundi recording (https://www.bach-cantatas.com/NVP/Moroney.htm: K-1. 26); music, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SdvhuPaXCvc.
⁸ David Montgomery, "Bach: Inventions / Sinfonias," liner notes to the Gustav Leonhardt 1974 recording, https://www.bach-cantatas.com/NVP/Leonhardt.htm#SoloKey: 4f); music, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CumE1-oRqS4.
⁹ Davitt Maroney, liner notes to Kenneth Gilbert 1981 English Suite recordings (https://www.bach-cantatas.com/NVP/Gilbert.htm: B-1, 14); music, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_OaLyZ_5Q8A).
¹⁰ Christoph Wolff, "Apropos Bach the teacher and practical philosopher," in The Keyboard in Barque Europe, ed. Christopher Hogwood (Cambridge University Press, 2003, 93ff), Festschrift for Gustav Leonhardt. 133ff).

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TO COME: Keyboard Music in Leipzig.